


so i showed up at your party

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: when you could be GLAD! [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Everyone is friends, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Party, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29340882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Afterwards at home, Harry had crawled into Draco’s lap and put his hands on Draco’s shoulders, met his eyes seriously and said: “Tell me you Obliviated your father because that was the weirdest experience of my entire life.”“Darling,” Draco had replied seriously, “I wish I could.”In which there is a garden party and a lot of people being silly.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: when you could be GLAD! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155014
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108





	so i showed up at your party

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to "in want of a" so I would highly recommend reading that first. It is also a series of ridiculous jokes I have with various people so...apologies? (more on this specifically in the end notes). Thanks to my brother for the hilarious ideas and Tharin47 for the inspiration for the dialogue you see in the summary. Title from Taylor Swift, and no t/w again! Enjoy!

The first thing Harry knows of it is a gilt-edged envelope dropping onto his desk like the world’s prettiest stink-bomb. He looks up from his early-morning in-tray to see Ron standing above him, all scowl and folded arms, his freckled cheeks pink.

“What’s this?” Ron demands.

“Good morning, Harry, how was your weekend?” Harry replies, picking up the envelope. “It was great thanks, Ron, Draco…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ron interrupts. “All that later. Look at it.”

Harry does. He looks down and he pulls out an equally gilt square of card with swirling handwriting on it in beautiful silver ink. He reads the words _garden party_ and _in honour of_ and _our son Draco and his boyfriend Harry_ and freezes. “Ah. I actually thought Draco was joking when he told me about this, honestly.”

“Do you even know your boyfriend?” he hears and looks up to see that Pansy has finally made it in, swishing her very expensive blue velvet cloak off her shoulders. “Draco doesn’t _joke._ Morning Toad, Ginger.”

“Morning, Parkinson,” Harry replies. “And he can be quite funny when he wants to be.”

“Being funny and being jocular are two astoundingly different things.” She raises her perfectly arched eyebrows. “I see Ronald has been invited too. They really are casting out the net. Imagine that.”

“Have you?” Ron asks, and Pansy gives him a withering look.

“I’ve only been Draco’s best friend since we were both shitting our nappies, what possible reason could they have to invite _me_?”

“Your sadly broken heart over the marriage that’s no longer going ahead?” Harry suggests, and Pansy barks a laugh.

Ron picks up the invitation again and his shoulders slump. “Urgh,” he says, only half-flippant, “It’s bad enough that you’re dating the ferret, now we have to put up with his parents too?”

“It could be worse,” Pansy says, coming over to loom over Harry’s desk as well. “They could be the Greengrasses. At least Narcissa has class.”

From the look on Ron’s face, _class_ is the last thing on his mind. Three years ago – three _weeks_ ago – Harry would have agreed, would have written off the whole lot of them as stuck-up blood supremacist pricks not worth the time of day. But then he and Draco had had to work together on that case, and there had been so much _more_ to Draco than he’d ever realised and what had been little more than hatred-and-aesthetic-appreciation at school had turned into sheer lust and then, incredibly, love. And then Draco had finally come out to his parents after months and months of doubt and deliberation, and three weeks ago, Harry had been invited with Draco to a cosy dinner at the Manor. He hadn’t known what to expect of them, of even who Draco would be around his parents, but he had spent the entire evening trying to pick his jaw up off the floor at Lucius Malfoy being downright friendly, at Narcissa Malfoy practically glowing with smug contentment, at the bright, lively, witty conversation sparking round the dinner table, at all the baby stories they were so terribly pleased to bring out.

Afterwards at home, Harry had crawled into Draco’s lap and put his hands on Draco’s shoulders, met his eyes seriously and said: “Tell me you Obliviated your father because that was the _weirdest_ experience of my entire life.”

“Darling,” Draco had replied seriously, “I wish I could.”

“Class and dodgy morals,” Ron mutters now, shoving the invitation back into his robes.

“We agreed not to talk about the war, Ronald,” Pansy reminds him sharply, and Ron rolls his eyes.

“Yeah. Sorry.” Then, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Please tell me Granger has forced you to purchase a decent set of dress robes.”

“I…why?”

“I had a sudden horrifying flashback to that ball in fourth year,” Pansy shudders delicately. “It’s a terrible shame I care about your pride, Ronald.”

“They’re fine,” Ron mutters. Harry sits back, folds his arms, knows he could rescue Ron if he really wanted to, but is enjoying the show far too much for that. 

“By your standards or society’s?”

“Merlin, Parkinson, why aren’t you getting on Harry’s case about this?”

“Because _he_ is dating Draco and I know for a fact that Draco tided his wardrobe extensively,” Pansy sniffs. “Much as I love Hermione, she is also not commonly known for her sartorial taste.”

“What is this, the fashion section of Witch Weekly or a law enforcement department?” a voice says from behind them, and all three snap to attention as Robards, the head Auror, sticks his head out of his office, half-amused, half-frowning. “Don’t you all have work to be doing?”

“Of course,” Pansy says smoothly, “but we were just having a quick discussion about the social event of the summer, sir.”

“Ah yes,” Robards nods, “congratulations on acceding to the Malfoy dynasty, Potter. My wife and I are looking forward to the party.”

With that, he shuts his door and Harry, stunned, face-palms. “I think,” he says from behind his hands, “they’ve invited the entire population of wizarding Britain.”

“I think,” Ron echoes, “that you might be right.”

*

“I can’t believe your father thought I was gay,” Theo says into the considering silence, “I mean, how has he missed…” he trails off, gesturing between himself and Daphne and the rock as big as Venus on her fourth finger.

“I mean, you are kind of misleading,” Daphne says consideringly, twirling a blonde ringlet delicately around one of her fingers.

“Yeah,” Pansy chimes in, “those glasses and the velvet shirts and your necklace. Mr Malfoy isn’t exactly on the forefront of fashion, is he?”

“True,” Theo says, and then shakes his head, “Still, ridiculous.”

Draco pouts at him, affects a swoon into Pansy who pinches his side hard. “Ow,” he says to her, and then, “I’m hurt, Nott.”

“What, that I’m not jumping at the chance to marry you? I think Potter would murder me if I tried.”

“He can be surprisingly vicious,” Draco smirks.

“Please keep your sex life to yourself,” Pansy groans. “Don’t want to hear it.”

“I didn’t say _anything_ about sex.”

“Your whole _being_ implied it, you louche degenerate,” she fires back.

“Anyway,” Daphne says, interrupting them before they can really get going, “Harry _is_ more of a catch than Theo. Sorry, darling.”

“No harm,” Theo replies, kisses her cheek. Daphne pinks, and smiles – all dimples and newly-engaged glow. It would be utterly sickening if Draco wasn’t so pleased for them both; in any case, he’s had a long time to get used to their lovebird act.

“So,” Daphne continues, leaning forward. “Who else have they invited?”

“Merlin, do you think I got a look in?” Draco demands and they all burst into laughter.

*

It is, Draco thinks, a beautiful day. The kind of beautiful day that obviously spent hours preening in a mirror before showing up, applying just the right quantity of Glowing Potion to the sky and meticulously curling its sunbeams. The gardens look glorious. The back flowerbed has been transformed into a rainbow, and the elves have conjured floral bowers around the edge of the lawn. Tables groan with all manner of fancy finger food and delicate flutes of elderflower champagne. It’s also been very busy – so busy in fact that Draco has only managed to drag Harry into the maze for half an hour to make out before the guests started arriving. It’s a crying shame, with Harry looking like that in those stunning blue summer dress robes Draco had ordered from Paris for him, but Draco will have to make do with Apparating them down to the orchard later, when everyone has gone home.

Most of him is reeling at the fact that he gets to share this all with Harry – his life, his childhood home, his parents. He’s been going to Molly Weasley’s dinners for over a year now, has been unquestioningly accepted into Harry’s family, but this is different. This is a bloody miracle.

He chats to a few people as he makes his way across the lawn, nods to Theo and Daph, and winds up hovering next to the rainbow flowers with Pansy, impeccable as ever in burnt-orange silk and her little diamond pendant. Everyone has pulled out all the stops and he realises, looking around, that it’s rather lovely to see new people here, to see people he’s become friends with in adulthood stand in the gardens they never would have been allowed access to before the war. His eyes skid over to Harry as ever, who is in conversation with Hermione and his mother by the terrace. The Weasleys are still a suspicious little clique by gate to the maze, but as Draco watches, Ginny breaks away from them and marches determinedly across the grass to where Rosaline Shafiq has just been joined by a golden-haired figure in a golden, floral dress…he feels Pansy stiffen next to him as she clocks who it is. She hands him her champagne glass.

“Get me another, darling,” she says. “I’m going to go say hello.”

Draco raises an eyebrow at her. “Is that really a good idea?”

“Kindly, fuck off,” she responds, and then she’s gone, and he watches her slip into the circle next to Astoria, lean slightly into Astoria’s side. They’re the kind of exes who never seem able to keep their hands off each other and ah, yes…when he’s done refilling her champagne and exchanging pleasantries with Harry’s boss, he spots the pair of them disappearing through the side-gate, hand in hand. Typical.

“Ah,” he hears his father say sometime later, “the _spy_! I’ve heard so much about you, young man.”

Draco excuses himself silently from the little circle listening to Vince and Greg’s latest adventure story, turns to see Cho Chang and her nonplussed husband, who is shaking his hand, glancing at Cho as if to say _help who is this over-jovial aristocrat._ Draco snickers to himself, moves over to insinuate himself into the conversation. It’s well-known amongst their friendship circle that Stephen is an MI6 agent, a Muggle who stumbled across wizards at university and was promptly recruited to be a spy. Draco’s sure his handlers weren’t banking on him meeting and falling head over heels for Cho, and equally sure they weren’t expecting their covert mission to turn so upside down, but that’s the way of the world. Now everyone kindly pretends to ignore what Stephen is up to and Stephen – relaxed guy that he is – plays along.

“How do you even know about that,” he asks his father, and then turns to them, “Stephen, Cho, hi, it’s lovely to see you here.”

“I have my sources,” his father says. “Tell me, young man, I want an honest answer. Did you really fight off a mob of Parisian gangsters with nothing but your wits and your cello?”

“There _were_ only three-” Stephen begins, demurring. 

“I think wits is pushing it,” Cho says at the exact same time, and Lucius laughs, delighted.

“Sorry,” Draco mouths in Stephen’s direction, and Stephen smiles at him, turns back to Lucius. Perhaps Harry’s onto something. Perhaps Lucius really has been obliviated. He doesn’t think he’s seen his father like this _ever,_ never thought he’d see the day when his father would happily chat to and laugh with a Muggle.

He talks to Cho for a bit about her part-time archival qualification, and then suddenly an arm slides around his waist, and he hears Harry say, “Hi! Cho! Mind if I borrow him?”

“Go ahead,” Cho says, fond. “I’d better extract Stephen before he introduces your father to Crusader Kings Three, Draco.”

“Crusader _what_?”

“Don’t ask,” Cho says and turns away. Draco takes Harry’s hand and they begin to wander through the party, smiling, saying hi, but not really stopping to chat until they end up on the terrace, sinking into chairs and watching the knots of people laughing and chatting. Draco sees Pansy re-appear briefly looking like the cat that got the cream and then disappear again with Ginny Weasley in tow, bafflingly. He sees the others Weasleys relaxing, spread out and chatting away. Hermione and Ron have their arms around each other talking to Mr and Mrs Nott and the eldest Shafiq son. He sees his parents, glowing, moving around their guests with shoulder claps and kisses on cheeks and supernova-bright smiles.

“They seem really happy,” Harry says eventually, tucking his head onto Draco’s shoulder with a contented little noise.

“They’ve always loved entertaining,” Draco replies, quiet. “The war put a stop to that, and they never really started again, after. Not until now.”

“I’m glad to have given them an excuse.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Draco sighs. “I never thought it could be like this, you know? Everyone here.”

“Me neither,” Harry agrees. “Never thought I’d find this place beautiful. Or actually like your parents, for that matter.”

“But you do?”

“Yeah. It’s weird. They’ve changed so much from how I remember them. But I do.”

“Well, good,” Draco says, kissing the top of Harry’s head. “I’m glad.”

**Author's Note:**

> Pansy is a vicious child and I love writing her so much. Stephen and Cho have this stupid epic love story that will be written at some point involving a heist, a jazz band, and Fleur Delacour's cousin (because Cho is wonderful and I also love her and she deserves everything) but he will be showing up in my next multi-chapter which should be up on the archive at some point in the not-so-distant future.
> 
> In any case: come and scream with me on Tumblr, I live at @if-fortunate.


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